Evaporation Pools Key To Most
Of The 5 Alternatives
Laid Out By Planning Panel

By Jennifer BowlesThe San Francisco
Chronicle

RIVERSIDE
- Fierce competition for
Colorado River water in the arid Southwest and the chance to harness
the sun's power to desalt California's largest lake will delay the
drafting of a final solution for curing the Salton Sea's
environmental ills.

A team of local and federal
agencies last month expanded its restoration report to see whether
solar ponds were a viable option for desalting the Salton Sea, which
straddles Riverside and Imperial counties.

Dropped from the draft
restora-tion report the idea of using less salty Colorado River water
to dilute the sea.

The team's draft plan, released in
January, was expected to identify a game plan. Instead, it laid out
five multimillion-dollar options that, for the most part, relied on a
network of evaporation machines to reduce the sea's salinity, now 25
percent higher than the Pacific Ocean's. That plan came under such
attack that the team was forced to rethink it.

"One word is 'opposition,' "said
Tom Kirk, executive director of the Salton Sea Authority, a joint
powers agency that consists of local water districts and
officials.

That opposition, Kirk said, came
from water agencies that rely on Colorado River water -- including
those in Arizona -- and from environmentalists who want any extra
river water to revitalize the wetlands downstrean in the Colorado
River delta in Mexico.

"It has not been easy to develop a
restoration plan, and we must continue to rely on good science to
guide restoration of the sea," said Deputy U.S. Interior Secretary
David Hayes.

Now, officials are working toward
a Jan. 1 deadline to name the silver bullet.

"It's not the best news, but you
have to understand the big picture," said Rusty Payne, spokesman for
Rep. Mary Bono, R-Palm Springs. "This is a huge
undertaking."

Bono has championed the sea's
restoration in Congress.

Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, wasn't
as understanding.

"They're obviously pushing this
problem to the next administration," said Calvert, who serves with
Bono on the congressional task force for the Salton Sea. "I'm still
pressing hard, but it's not going as fast as we would
like."

The Interior Department, through
the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Salton Sea Authority will launch a
revised or supplemental report to the draft plan, which cost about $6
million from various state and federal funds, Kirk said.

The follow-up report, which would
cost another $200,000, is expected to name a solution before Jan. 1
so Congress can have the opportunity to fund the project.

The announcement came as the
summer heat was penetrating the sea and brewing up toxins in a
naturally occurring spore, causing a botulism outbreak that has
killed 215 birds since May 22. Of those, 113 have been endangered
brown pelicans, said Tahni Johnson, a wildlife disease specialist
contracted by the Salton Sea Authority.

The birds are a key reason for the
restoration effort. The sea sits in a crucial spot for birds that
migrate on the Pacific Flyway between the Arctic and Central
America.

The U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency criticized the draft plan as inadequate for focusing to
narrowly on salinity and elevation problems and failing to take into
account the sea's part in a regional ecosystem.

In a lawsuit filed in May,
environmental groups sought to get the federal government to consider
allotting water from the Colorado River to help revitalize the
delta's wetlands and the endangered species that depend on them for
survival.

The salinity of the Salton Sea,
which is now fed only by irrigation runoff and sewer discharge, has
increased because there is no natural outlet, only evaporation from
the surface.

The idea of using solar ponds to
alleviate the salinity was suggested by an engineering firm that had
reviewed the draft plan. The Salton Sea Authority plans to hire a
contractor to build two ponds along the lake near Niland in Imperial
County to test the theory.